The Loving Story

I just saw "The Loving Story" this afternoon at the Traverse City Film Festival. The film is moving and inspirational, illustrating that sometimes even poor and minimally educated people can obtain justice within our court system. The story is straightforward and the ending is known, but the still photos and interview footage (some just recently discovered) of Richard and Mildred Loving shows a very genuine and touching relationship between them and their 3 children. Their quiet dignity in the face of racist laws and attitudes is inspirational. The ACLU once again is shown to be a force for justice to which people without money or power can turn.

We were not lucky enough to have the Loving's daughter Peggy present (as was the case for aegriffin at Tribeca) but the director and writers Nancy Buirski and Susie Ruth Powell were here for a Q&A. Their story of how this documentary came to be is entertaining and emotional. The idea that this film should have been used (as suggested by another reviewer) as an "opportunity to investigate the legal process" leaves me puzzled. Unless one is an attorney, the film presents as much about the legal process as one would reasonably want to know. It is not a legal treatise, but rather a story of a couple in love who would not back down from what is right, and an affirmation that the US legal system can (in time) bring about a just outcome on some occasions.

Everyone I saw it with gave this documentary their highest rating. You will not regret the time spent viewing this heart-warming slice of civil rights history. Kudos to Ms. Buirski & Powell.

And Ms. Buirski did mention that the documentary will be shown on HBO in February 2012. I certainly plan to watch it again at that time. 9/10

The racism and the Jim Crow laws that existed were so encompassing that they applied to things you may have never thought about. It makes me wonder how many laws were removed from the books with the Civil Rights movement. And they talk about government needing to be smaller.

"The Loving Story" is about Richard Perry Loving, a white man, and Mildred Jeter Loving, a Black woman, who violated Virginia's miscegenation laws when they married. On June 2, 1958 the two got married in Washington D. C. and went back home to Virginia. On July 14th a sheriff entered their home at 4 a.m. And arrested them. They were sentenced to a year in prison, but the judge suspended the sentence with the condition that they leave Virginia. They were banished for nine years before the U. S. Supreme Court overturned the conviction which allowed them to legally return home as a couple.

"The Loving Story" is mostly footage from the 1960's while the case was actively being argued. There are a few present day interviews, but most of the interviews were from about 60 years ago. If I thought about it, then it would make sense to me that the South would have anti-miscegenation laws, but when you don't operate with that mindset, you wouldn't fathom it. "The Loving Story" is just one more important battle waged and won during the fight for civil rights back in the 60's.

A classic example of an excellent document (the story of a persecuted mixed-race married couple in the 50s that went all the way to the US Supreme Court and finally changed the laws) in a not so excellent documentary. While the story and the characters are very compelling, the documentary seems to drag out for some periods and it looks more like an easy made for TV documentary than a true artistic reflexion.

Richard (Joel Edgerton) and Mildred (Ruth Negga) fall in love and want to get married when Mildred finds out she's pregnant. It's 1958 in Carolin County, Virginia and interracial marriages are illegal. They drive to Washington, D.C. to get married where it is legal and return to Virginia. The state does not recognize the marriage and they are arrested. The Lovings story and their legal case goes to the U.S. Supreme Court and becomes a landmark case in marriage laws.

This is a movie everyone should see, it's a reminder to us all how different and difficult life was for a large part of the population or for those who did not follow societal laws.

The love these two people had for one another was genuinely real, and watching them and their beautiful children in the archival footage tugged at your heartstrings. I watched this documentary when it was first shown on HBO, and thought it was engrossing. I was 20 yrs. old when this case was finally decided, and I remember it vaguely. I lived in the North and had known that interracial marriage was illegal in the South, but never realized that couples were actually persecuted and jailed as the Loving couple were. The young ACLU lawyers who took the case are shown interacting with the couple in the l960's, and they also add present day commentary.

This is not meant to be a documentary about the legal machinations of the case (altho some of that is explained); but It's a compelling story about the human aspects of the case.